by Kile Smith | May 22, 2018 | Choral music, Jazz, new music, Spirituality
Text by Robert Lax Music by Kile Smith for SATB choir, unaccompanied Duration, 65 minutes Commissioned for The Crossing, Donald Nally, conductor. Premiered June 30th, 2018, at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. All text used with the permission of...
by Kile Smith | Feb 24, 2018 | Choral music, church music, liturgical music
For unison congregation, organ, and optional cantor and optional descant. The Association of Anglican Musicians commissioned me to write music for the Closing Eucharist of their National Conference in Philadelphia, June 17–22, 2012. The Mass for Philadelphia was first...
by Kile Smith | Feb 15, 2018 | Choral music, Spirituality
[George Case and Boston Cecilia asked me to contribute to their blog in the run-up to their 11 Mar 2018 concert of Canticle. This is what I wrote, slightly edited.] Saints bless the world, even when the world doesn’t know it. Saints who write, though, speak to the...
by Kile Smith | Feb 2, 2018 | Anthem, Choral music, church music
SATB, organ. Moderately easy. Original tune with spare harmonies; an early American sound that recalls shape-note singing. Composed 1982, revised 2003. See and hear the entire work here. Come to Calvary’s holy mountain, Sinners, ruined by the fall; Here a pure and...
by Kile Smith | Dec 20, 2017 | Choral music, church music, liturgical music, new music
With an Alleluia and an Agnus Dei written in the last two weeks, I’ve now completed a chant-based Mass for our Christmas Eve service. It began in 2001 with the Sanctus; we added the Gloria in 2006. I re-used the Sanctus for Easter 2005: It is an interpolation between...
by Kile Smith | Dec 19, 2017 | Choral music, new music
I know a German who does not drink beer. I have heard there are others, but he is the only one I know. I have never heard, however, of Germans who do not sing toasts. Even the German I know who does not drink beer, sings toasts, when others are drinking beer....
